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James: Whoops, another Fordian slip

In the beautifully bizarre minutes last Wednesday after city council unexpectedly banned single purchase plastic bags in Toronto’s retail stores, an apropos phrase was coined.

A Ford-ian slip.

I don’t quite know how Twitter works — reporter Robyn Doolittle signed me up and I tweet occasionally on her threat of bodily harm if I don’t — but some city hall watcher tweeted the phrase and it was re-tweeted across the Twitterverse.

A Fordian slip is what occurs when you attempt something that results in the opposite of what you intended. An unintended consequence, often mockingly opposite the original impulse.

For example, in attempting to save someone from drowning, you drown yourself; or while attempting to pull someone back in the canoe, you tip the vessel and drown all those aboard. Those are good Fordian slips.

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A bad one is called shooting oneself in the foot. Or the boomerang effect of setting out to do mischief or harm, only to have the tables turned on you.

Good politicians are cognizant of unintended consequences; Mayor Ford plunges into them.

Good politicians know the limit of their powers and forge consensus to move issues towards the common good. Ford bullies and disparages his would-be allies, then feigns surprise when he finds himself alone on the battlefield.

Effectively rudderless, it’s a miracle council doesn’t make more mistakes.

Ford says the people telephoned him to complain about the bag fee, so he moved to eliminate it. Here’s what he might have done.

First, talk to councillors to see where they stood on the bag fee. Had he done that he would have discovered a huge range of views and policy options to fix the offending elements of the bylaw, in effect since 2009.

Councillor Michelle Berardinetti, a member of his executive committee, made it clear she opposed returning to the old ways while opposing paying retailers 5 cents per bag. Consumers would feel better if they knew the 5-cent fee was going towards replenishing Toronto’s tree canopy, not lining the pockets of the very manufacturers who make the product that taxpayers must pay to landfill or recycle, she argued.

Others disliked the fee but hated where we were four years ago when we annually consumed half a billion plastic bags. The fee cut consumption in half — a good thing.

In fact, only a diminishing minority of city councillors — right-wing or centrist or left-wing — believe, as the mayor and his brother do, that we should let business figure out how environmentally responsible or not they want to be.

Instead of heeding that vibe, Ford bulldozed ahead, as if he had council’s backing. And it blew up in his face. Instead of returning to the good old days when there was no limits on the use of plastic bags, council opted to ban the bags totally.

Better policy making would have had council hold public meetings and consultations with retailers and the plastics industry.

Fortunately, while the bylaw is being drafted — and before the decision becomes law on Jan. 1 — council can hold meetings on the details of the new bylaw and how it might be enacted.

Meanwhile, if your impulse is to complain to Mayor Ford today that we have too many city councillors, beware. On cue, Ford will drive into city hall Monday, draft a motion to reduce the number to 22 instead of 44 councillors — without first working with councillors to develop a consensus.

If the plastic bag vote is any indication, expect the number of city councillors to double in time for the next election — thanks to another Fordian slip.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca

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